Earlier quoted context omitted.
[deleted]
It's pure chemicals What is food if not chemicals?
Impure chemicals.
Soylent Campaign
501–510 of 608 posts
Re: Soylent Campaign
#502I don't understand why they had to name their product "Soylent". It doesn't even contain soy. Many people avoid soy products and/or have negative associations with it (GMO, Monsanto, phytoestrogens, allergy).
Why would you alienate potential customers with a product name that beings with "Soy"?
Re: Soylent Campaign
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a very good point and very observant. I too am highly skeptical of ALL of these claims. My main gripe with Soylent (ever since I first saw it here on HN a month ago) is that they are making cooking seem like a horrible chore that nobody wants to do. Shopping is convenient because I go whenever I have time and only buy exactly what I need. At the same time, I also ensure I only buy the best ingredients I can at…
My concern is that they are billing this as healthy with zero evidence that it actually is. The last few years of nutrition research has begun to show us that we know nothing about it. Pretending you can come up with an optimal solution when nobbody knows what healthy is, is just that, pretending. I fear for the people who see this as a great "life hack" who wind up doing long-lasting damage to themselves. There are…
In this case it is.
None of them have a background in biology/nutrition/medicine/health from what I can see.
Their product ha the story and format to appeals to the HN audience "hack food".
They consider cooking a chore and a "waste of time", which means there are audience is VERY limited. The majority of people spend a large amount on variety and taste in food because they like it. So their target market is people who think like them.
And finally - and most importantly - you cannot eat the same concentration and matrix of nutrients every day!
On some days you will work harder, or work less, fall sick, want sugar, drink alcohol, be happy, have medicines - or experience any of a thousand different variable large and small which necessitate a change in diet.
Re: Soylent Campaign
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like cooking too. But sometimes it is a chore, or sometimes I'm busy and don't want to spend time cooking.
That's why there's restaurants and convenience foods. What a false dichotomy. The chore of an elaborate home cooked meal, or gulping down a cup of snot.
Restaurant food is comparatively expensive for many people. In my country (welfare state, high minimal wage), even takeout is generally much more expensive than a homemade meal. Not to mention food delivery to your doorstep; the cheapest Indian meal I can order for delivery, for example, is $43, of which the delivery charge is $13. That's insane. For $10-15 I can make a decent meal at home.
Restaurant food is also very often unhealthy. They add tons of fat (generally butter or cream) to make it taste like "proper restaurant food". Unless you stick to the salad.
And many "convenience" meals (frozen stuff, or souse-vide packets for microwaving, ready-made soups you just heat in a pot) just are not very good. I personally struggle to find easy-to-make meals, and often end up just frying some eggs or cooking some pasta with oil and garlic, just because I don't have the energy to make a proper dinner.
Re: Soylent Campaign
#505[deleted]
Re: Soylent Campaign
#506Wow there is a lot of hate in this thread... A lot of the arguments here seem to boil down to "Much smarter people are working on this and they haven't solved it, who the hell does this KID think he is?!?" That's pretty depressing for a website that, at least originally, was to help startups talk to one another. Shame on you, hacker news. You're smarter than this. By this logic, never ever trust your data to anybody…
> "Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition"
If he tempers his claims and recommends it as a time-saving meal, the danger to consumers should be mitigated and the reactions here would likely be a lot less violent. Say,
"Use well-balanced Soylent for 1 to 2 meals a day to save yourself a great deal of time. You should have varied diet in other meals to ensure even more complete nutritional composition for your body."
Re: Soylent Campaign
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that those hippies don't raise $100k+ on the web. "Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition" The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish. Also, if anything those dumb hacker kids build breaks (email, web app, game) etc, they won't hurt you physically. The body…
>The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish. You know, every time this guy's story has popped up on here I've defended him. I like that he's trying to do something big, I like that he wants to solve a very real world problem, and I like that in his blog posts and updates he phrased all of his results as personal findings needing further study. However, this: >>"Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for yo…
The issue I would see with the placebo sludge, would be that it would immediately present as no the real deal... As I assume one cannot live off of sugar water for very long.
I'm not exactly sure what the control would be, I guess what ever it is they stick in feeding tubes?
Re: Soylent Campaign
#508I read this initially assuming it to be a clever spoof on the whole startup / crowdsourcing scene, because of the name: pick something that is obviously a joke product ("Soylent Green is people!") and run with it - start piling on impressive claims, include startup-y backgrounds for the founders, and be really vague about what the product actually is. Given my initial interpretation, I thought the "Is soylent vegan a…
I had the same thought, I was cracking up reading the website, especially the "testimonials" and the brief FAQ answers. Then I read the comments and had to search for "green" before I found your comment that even suggested it was a joke. I think is all one elaborate joke.
Re: Soylent Campaign
#509Has it been vetted by FDA? What is the long term effect of having a supplement instead of regular food? Where is the controlled trial data?
Re: Soylent Campaign
#510is it people?
My thought exactly the choice of name is suspicious, and lack of ingredients even more so. Is this all a joke?